ΠΕΡΙ ΑΚΡΟΔΕΞΙΟΥ ΛΑΙΚΙΣΜΟΥ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΥΡΩΠΗ

By Britta Petersen*
A new spectre is haunting Europe — that of right-wing populism. There
is more than an air of panic in the media and political circles about
it, especially in Germany ­— a country whose Alternative for Germany
(AfD) is a latecomer in the European populist landscape.
Historian Paul Nolte recently called the success of the party a
“quasi-revolutionary unrest”. This might come as a surprise, given that
the AfD is still small compared to other European populist parties. In
Italy and the Netherlands, for instance, a slow collapse of the
traditional party system over two decades gave rise to the populists.
But Germany’s history and developments in other European countries have
led more thanone observer to
draw parallels to the often violent discourse of the Weimar Republic in
the 1920s that helped Adolf Hitler’s ascent to power.
“We are experiencing at the moment that all over Europe democracies become unstable, just like in the 1920s [sic],” Nolte said in an interview.
Even in France, a country that has been living with the Front
National for decades, panic shook the political spectrum when the
populist, xenophobic party came out strong in the first round of the regional elections at the end of 2015, although they could not retain that lead in
the subsequent round. Yet, all of a sudden it seemed possible that
Front National chair Marine Le Pen could become the next French
president in 2017.
Austria was recently even closer to a similar scenario but avoided it: The country narrowly escaped the
election of right-wing populist Norbert Hofer in the presidential
elections in May 2016. Hofer gained 49.7% of the vote while Alexander
Van der Bellen, candidate of the Green Party, won with 50.3 %.
Both cases show it is realistic that a major western European country
can fall into the hands of right-wing populism, just as Donald Trump
stands a good chance of winning the presidential elections in the US.
Such a development would exacerbate the malaise of an EU plagued by the
Ukraine crisis, the sovereign debt crisis in Greece and the refugee
crisis.

The hard facts

All populist parties are fiercely anti-European. It is therefore high time to stop their ascent.
A few reasons that explain their development are regularly discussed.
For instance, populist parties believe globalisation has robbed people
all over the world of their distinct identities that were tied to the
nation state and its symbols. The EU, as a project that attempts to
overcome nationalism, is a natural enemy of those who dislike the whole
idea.
The Brexit discussion had been partly driven by the will to maintain
what is considered national identity under threat from Europe. The murder of Jo Cox by
an assailant who apparently screamed “Britain first” before stabbing
her, is a sad climax to a discourse that seems to be totally out of
control.
Economics also matters. The ascent of emerging powers such as China
and India plus the economic crisis has produced more losers of
globalisation than winners in the West. For the first time in Europe and
the US, a whole generation knows that it will not be economically
better-off than the one before it. Years of neo-liberal politics have
widened the gap between the rich and the poor, and arguably intensified
the problem.

The pinch of alienation

While these developments are unlikely to be reversed, it is worth
looking at other softer factors that make people vote for right-wing
populists. These are also easier to tackle and could therefore give
hints about a possible strategy to counter populism.
Europe has become increasingly politically and socially liberal in
the last 20 years. This is best exemplified by German chancellor Angela
Merkel and her government. A women as the head of government and a
female defence minister were unthinkable not very long ago but are now
quite common in many countries of Europe.
Merkel is specifically a good example because she opened up her
Christian Democratic Party (CDU) to new voters by shifting it
programmatically to the centre or even centre-left. Her government
scrapped nuclear energy and compulsory military service, introduced a
marriage-like partnership for homosexual couples, allowed dual
citizenship for children of immigrants and made compulsory a women’s
quota for supervisory boards of large companies. These have been the
political demands of the centre-left parties in the past.
This worked for Merkel because large parts of her electorate had
become more liberal over the years. But a considerable number of
traditionally conservative voters became politically homeless in the
process.
Social Democrats who have been covering traditional conservative
positions in the past (for example, through law-and-order politics) also
find it difficult to keep a clear profile all over Europe today because
many of them felt the need to adjust their programmes to the demands of
the corporate world and financial markets.
As a result, roughly 25% of European voters who can be considered
‘conservative’ in one or the other have become easy prey for right-wing
populists. Even voters who just want their beer or cheese to remain as
it is might be counted as conservative in this context because they too
feel the pinch of alienation.

Authoritarian temptation

The fact that populism is what Michael Freeden called a ‘thin
ideology’ allows conservative voters to cast their ballot in favour of
populist leaders, even if they do not agree with all their demands.
‘Thin ideologies’ pursue only a few goals (for instance, to reduce the
number of immigrants or to leave the Eurozone) and borrow from different
ideologies in other political contexts. That is why the phenomenon of
populism often seems so contradictory.
Populists oscillate between traditionally different political
positions so that the old categories of right and left seem to vanish.
Or they consciously muddy the waters between themselves and extremist
positions in order to reach out to these voters who are still a small
minority in Europe. Cynics therefore argue that populism is mainly a
tool to gain power. But one does not really want to know what “the empty
heart of populism”, in Paul Taggart’s words, pours out once it is in power.
While the Greek crisis saw an increase in left-wing populism, the
refugee crisis has paved the way for xenophobic and anti-Islamic
positions that often border on racism and anti-Semitism. The German AfD,
for instance, has perfected the art of making racist or anti-Semitic
statements and then backtracking when scrutinised by journalists. Le Pen
is said to have purged the Front National of anti-Semitism and racism —
a highly doubtful claim, given the continuity of members in the party
and its strong anti-Islamic profile.
But even if right-wing populists are not fascists or Nazis, these
parties are a threat to Europe because they are deeply illiberal. They
resent representative democracy in the name of a pre-modern ‘common
sense’ of ‘the people’ as opposed to the ruling elites, who are
described as ‘technocratic’ or ‘corrupt’. Their hostility towards
institutions raises serious questions about their ability to govern a
modern state.

Shrinking space for liberal politics

Rousseau’s idea of a volonté générale (the will of the
people) on the political left and a pre-democratic access of the common
people to a higher truth on the right lead to authoritarian forms of
government, which brought disaster to Europe in the 20th century and
should not be repeated. The fact that their criticism of the EU contains
more than a grain of truth does not make their answers any better.
While recent studies indicate that the number of people in Europe who
actually hold right wing extremist views have not increased, the above
analysis shows that the phenomenon of right wing populism has grown by
far too big to be ignored by mainstream political parties anymore.
The ascent of right-wing populism has already started to make liberal
politics more difficult, as seen in the refugee crisis and the problems
Merkel is facing for opening doors to refugees. Knives are out against
the German chancellor in her own party and it might even cost her the
job in the next elections, a development that seemed unthinkable just a
year ago.
Whenever a right-wing populist party becomes a force to reckon with,
liberal parties nervously start adjusting their politics to the demands
of populists. This could lead to a vicious circle for Europe because the
answer to the continent’s problems on a global scale lies in greater
openness, in walking the talk, in harnessing the true potential of
enlightenment instead of attempting to turn Europe into a fortress.

Towards a counter-populism strategy

It is therefore important to draw the right lessons from what is
happening. There are a few things that can be done to reduce the
populists to size. While it seems useless to reach out to hard-wired
extremists, conservative voters that make up a significant part of the
vote bank of right wing populists at the moment usually do not want to
overthrow the political system.
They need to be wooed by both conservative and social democratic
parties by creating new narratives around traditionally conservative and
social democratic values:
An efficient handling of the influx of refugees plus enforcement of
existing laws would send a signal that European governments and the
European Union are committed to good governance. The message must be
that strong states in a strong EU are able to protect their citizens and
also absorb people in need. This requires more spending on police and
security institutions and the will to live up to the challenge.
Family values are cherished not only by conservatives. Creating work
conditions that allow families more time with their children or ageing
parents is what most people want. All European countries have social
support policies for families but there is still room for more.
Right-wing populists usually have very little to say about social
politics. This is therefore wide field to win back voters.
Regional identities within European countries and a European identity
as a whole are not contradictory. Promoting both at the same time has
to figure high on the political agenda. The EU does not need to be a
one-size-fits-all club. There are a lot of ideas how this could
realised. It has to be done now. This requires a conscious effort of
pro-European parties all over Europe to give up the policy of blaming
the EU for everything that could be unpopular and promote Europe
proactively.
If populism is “a shadow cast by democracy”, as Margaret Canovan once argued,
it is time to address the complaints about the European project more
openly. The rationalistic political discourse of “no alternative” as
exemplified by the cerebral Merkel has proven fatal. Democracies per
definition must provide voters with alternatives. And it is the job of
democratic parties to develop and formulate these alternatives in forms
that appeal to voters of different backgrounds.
At the same time, democratic parties have to resist the politics of division. The Economistrecently
called “divided we fall” a comment to those supporting the Brexit. But
this has a message for democratic parties in each and every European
country as well. Hate-speech and war-mongering are instruments of the
populists. The European project was always about overcoming differences,
about leaving centuries of war and even the cold war behind.
This is the greatest challenge to these ideas so far. If Europe
cannot defend itself against the enemy from within now, there might be
nothing left to defend.About the author:
*Britta Petersen: After completing her Masters degree in
Philosophy, Political Science and Economics at Free University Berlin,
Ms.Petersen trained as a journalist at Axel Springer Journalism School
in Berlin and became an editor for business and economics in the same
company. Upon the inception of the German Financial Times, she joined
their team in 2000 as editor for politics in South- and Southeast Asia
in Berlin and later became their correspondent for South Asia.This article originally appeared in The Wire.